When you insist that a bill designed to support voting rights for everyone, shine a light on billionaire donors, crack down on lobbyists' influence and protect our elections from foreign interference would just help Democrats, that's a pretty big tell. https://t.co/daXp87DMBo

I'm starting to better understand Mitch McConnell. He's not leading a co-equal branch of govt. He's leading a corrupt cabal of complicit conservative co-conspirators in congress who conducted a coup to control the courts & now don't give a damn what Putin's Puppet POTUS does. pic.twitter.com/lqLwAXgVN7

… There simply is no more loathsome creature walking the political landscape than the Majority Leader of the United States Senate. You have to go back to McCarthy or McCarran to find a Senate leader who did so much damage to democratic norms and principles than this yokel from Kentucky. Trump is bad enough, but he’s just a jumped-up real-estate crook who’s in over his head. McConnell is a career politician who knows full well what he’s doing to democratic government and is doing it anyway because it gives him power, and it gives the rest of us a wingnut federal judiciary for the next 30 years. There is nothing that this president* can do that threatens McConnell’s power as much as it threatens the survival of the republic, and that’s where we are.
McConnell declared himself in opposition to Barack Obama right from the first day in office. There’s even video. Most noxiously, in reference to our present moment, when Obama came to him and asked him to present a united front against the Russian ratfcking that was enabling El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago, McConnell turned him down, flat. Moreover, he told Obama that, if Obama went public, McConnell would use it as a political hammer on Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Obama should have done it anyway, god knows.) McConnell issued a watery denial of these charges, but there’s no good goddamn reason to believe him.

He doesn’t have the essential patriotism god gave a snail. He pledges allegiance to his donors, and they get what they want. He’s selling out his country, and he’s doing it in real-time and out in the open. This is worse than McCarthy or McCarran ever were. Mitch McConnell is the the thief of the nation’s soul.

“I believe that Mitch McConnell has ruined the Senate” — Harry Reid to the NYTM, in a very readable look at the Kentucky Republican https://t.co/rGYx26RKZj

… McConnell, who has represented Kentucky in the Senate for 34 years and, as of last June, is the longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history, is one of Washington’s most famously inexpressive creatures. “You’ve got to see the gears turning behind the eyes, because the mouth isn’t moving very much,” Ryan told me…

… [B]y the fall of last year, McConnell had emerged as one of the few unambiguous winners of the Trump presidency to date. When I first spoke with him, this past November, he talked of the preceding two years with a faint air of mystified amusement at his own fortune: as if a minor meteor had streaked through the window of the majority leader’s office, narrowly missing his head before exploding against the two-century-old marble fireplace, and then also turned out to be filled with candy and hundred-dollar bills. “I think even though we’re pretty different in every way you can think of,” he told me, clearing his throat, “we’ve had a good sort of team effort here to accomplish as much as we can.”

He was the Trump administration’s indispensable partner in seating two Supreme Court justices and 83 lower-court judges: a generational remaking of the courts that has made McConnell, “in my view, the most consequential majority leader, certainly, in modern history,” says Leonard Leo, the conservative legal activist who serves as executive vice president of the Federalist Society and as an adviser to the Trump administration on the court appointments. Shortly after the midterm elections, McConnell’s longtime adviser J. Scott Jennings described to me how McConnell had “taken on this role as the principal enabler of the Trump agenda,” and he meant it as a compliment. There had been an improbable synergy between the two men: the president who covets power but has little sense or discipline in wielding it, and the legislator who has often seemed to consider the skillful exercise of power an end unto itself…

What began as the moronic stubbornness of an incompetent POTUS has become a win for a corrupt White House bent on hobbling government itself.

Mitch McConnell, whether by accident or design, is singlehandedly responsible for undermining the United States government. https://t.co/SxWm3AnYyI

The owlish, placid Senate majority leader spoke quietly but firmly. “No, Mr. President,” McConnell said. “Not one.” Democrats had passed Obamacare without any Republican votes. If Republicans were going to repeal it, McConnell believed they’d have to do it in the same way.

“What about Joe Manchin?” Trump asked, as if McConnell must have for­gotten him. Manchin, a 69-year-old West Virginia Democrat who liked to position himself as above partisan politics and willing to work with the GOP, was coming up for reelection in 2018 in a state that Trump had won by 42 points. On top of that, Trump viewed him as a personal friend. Surely his buddy Joe would play ball.

“Absolutely not, Mr. President,” McConnell said in a tone that seemed designed to end the debate.

“Really?” the president asked. Often the contrarian, he seemed to view this as a personal challenge as well as a test of his persuasiveness. “I have a wonderful relationship with him; I think he might come around.”

McConnell didn’t flinch. He stayed sitting upright in his brown leather chair, elbows on the armrests and hands clasped underneath his chin.

“Mr. President,” he began, “he’ll never be with us when it counts. I’ve seen this time and time again. We’re going to do everything in our power to beat him when he comes up for reelection in 2018.”…

“Well, Joe’s been a friend of mine, so we’ll have to see,” Trump said, turning his attention back to McConnell. “Do we have to go after him like that?” “Absolutely, Mr. President,” McConnell shot back without a moment’s hesitation. “We’re going to crush him like a grape.” Outside the walls of the Roosevelt Room, the conventional wisdom was that men like McConnell would temper Trump’s aggressive impulses. Just the opposite was happening right now. There was a brief silence—maybe a half second—when the atmosphere in the room felt like the scene in Goodfellas when no one can tell how Joe Pesci is going to react to Ray Liotta calling him “funny.” Would he freak out? Would he laugh it off? Finally Trump broke the tension.

“This guy’s mean as a snake!” he said, pointing at McConnell and looking around the room. The entire group burst out laughing.

“I like it, though, Mitch,” he continued, giving McConnell two quick pats on the back. “If that’s what you think we need to do.”

“I do,” McConnell said, never breaking his steely-­eyed character…

“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell.” – Christopher R. Browning

Fair and open elections are a fucking power grab, just not the kind McConnell likes. He thinks power grabs should be done in quiet rooms, among close friends and a few representatives of foreign intelligence agencies.

I couldn’t bear to watch that Turtle clip…is his “logic” that voters will be so grateful to the Dems for having a (yet another? liberal slackers!) day off that they’ll vote straight-ticket Dem as a thank-you? I can’t even figure out what the RWNJ/McConnell cover story is here…

I think the Dems should create a national holiday for voting day called “Democracy Day”. And wrap it up in all the shitty flag / nationalism crap they can. Be as jingoistic as they can in selling it, then to opposition “what do you have against democracy?”

@Amir Khalid: that’s his own internal logic…what’s the cover story he would like to sell America (or at least the GOP base)? An extra day off is for slackers; real Americans make time/struggle through any hardship to vote?

@Baud: F******k owns it, so I’d advise against actually signing up for an account, but it might be worth reading some of the politicians’ feeds from time to time.

I’ll agree that that FTFNYT article is pretty good, especially by their standards, but Christ, their editors must be asleep at the switch.

McConnell, who has represented Kentucky in the Senate for 34 years and, as of last June, is the longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history, is one of Washington’s most famously inexpressive creatures.

This technically isn’t incorrect, but holy Christ, it’s awkward. Difficult to parse where the dependent clause starts and ends thanks to all the unnecessary commas. Much better:

McConnell, who has represented Kentucky in the Senate for 34 years and became the longest-serving Republican leader in Senate history last June, is one of Washington’s most famously inexpressive creatures.

I don’t know how a sentence that awkwardly phrased got out of first draft.

The simplest way to understand McConnell is that he’s one of those politicians who is entirely interested in the power that he gains from being in office. Anything that reduces that power is a threat to him, and he will use any tool necessary to address the threat. Once you get that, nothing he does or says is a surprise.

Australians always vote on a Saturday, and voting is compulsory, so there is always a big voter turnout, for both state and federal elections. Many of the polling places are located at schools, community halls and churches, so the groups whose facilities are used for polling booths often take advantage of the large number of people coming to their location, and set up stalls to raise funds for their groups. For many community groups this is the biggest fundraising event of the year.

“Every Brexiter MP and commentator is an instant expert on the food industry, just as they are on the car industry or aerospace, knowing far more than those who actually work in and run those businesses. Or, for those of such self-evident ignorance that any claim to expertise would cause instant laughter, a more boorish approach is taken. Hence one of the most shameful of recent events, when Mark Francois, Deputy Chair of the ERG, denounced the CEO of Airbus, one of the UK’s most important employers, for being German, tore up his letter warning of the consequences of no deal, and talked about his own father having stood up to German ‘bullying’ on D-Day. It would be hard to find a more compelling image of the silliness and sheer nastiness of the Brexit Ultras.”

He can no longer lead the Speaker of the House by the nose. The shade she threw at him was classic and perfect, because it galvanized him to do something. Which i thought was great. He is definitely the worst of them out there right now, since he knows exactly what he’s doing. Nancy so far seems to know how rattle him, and i hope that continues. Because we’re going to need every advantage possible to head off as much shit as we can until something gives.

Len Blavatnik is a Russian oligarch with US and UK citizenship who owns Access Industries and donated to Sen. McConnell’s 2016 Senate campaign vehicles.
Blavatnik’s Access Industries made many of its billions from Putin’s decisions about its Russian oil partnership.

He is also a long-term business partner of Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska at RuSal, in which he is a major investor, as well as Viktor Vekselberg, who is entangled with Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen through his U.S. family office Columbus Nova.

Last week, Sen. McConnell led 42 Republicans in voting against a resolution to maintain sanctions on Blavatnik’s business partner Deripaska.
The Trump Administration formally dropped sanctions on the night of January 27th, 2019, which were imposed against Deripaska, Blavatnik’s long time business partner, for his high-level role in Russia’s election attack against the United States in 2016. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is also a longtime business partner of Blavatnik.
…

what’s the cover story he would like to sell America (or at least the GOP base)?

You just heard it. His cover story is that it’s unfair for Democrats to encourage more voting and less corruption, because that benefits Democrats. This is a belief often held openly among Republicans, elected and voters. In Wisconsin (Michigan?) when they were trying to pass that law to limit the governor’s power, they said openly it’s because a Democrat was elected and a Democratic governor might use his power to do liberal things. They don’t believe in sharing.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Using some of his harshest rhetoric in recent memory, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly against intelligence on Wednesday morning.

“I’ve listened to these people with so-called intelligence go on and on, and, quite frankly, it’s a waste of time,” he said. “I know a lot more than people with intelligence do.”

Trump added that he has stopped receiving intelligence briefings at the White House, arguing, “I can do my job without any intelligence whatsoever.”

He said that he has chosen, instead, to seek advice from his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and from his elder children, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald, Jr. “You won’t find a trace of intelligence in anything they say,” he boasted.

At a briefing for the White House press corps, the President’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, denied that Trump’s war on intelligence was a new development. “Intelligence has never played a role in Donald Trump’s life,” she said.

I am so sick of how the media has obviously been born just this week. Every fucking week. Shit that was clear in Obama’s term is now dawning on these fools. They make me angrier than the turtle traitor.

@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I think his shock was the level of knowledge the IC had about how compromised his party was.

Wasn’t it Yertle who was reported shocked and speechless after a classified briefing a couple of years ago outlining just what the Intelligence Community had on Russian election interference?

My unfounded suspicion is that the briefing just happened to contain “by the way, Mitch, we know the REAL reason you got discharged from the Army, the one that was purged from the official records decades ago. And we know you’d hate to see it leak.”

@Sebastian: I would really like to know what’s in those hacked RNC emails. It might explain Lindsey Graham’s behavior, among other things (Paul Ryan’s resignation, Devin Nunes, etc., etc.).

I like how the Democrats have framed the HR1 legislation. Most reasonable people will raise their eyebrows at McConnell’s characterization, especially those who understand that many democracies around the world make election day a holiday or have elections on weekends when more people can participate.

How do the Democrats handle a judiciary that’s way, way, way more conservative than the general population though? If we win the House, Senate and presidency in 2020, how much can we undo the damage to the courts, which gets very little attention? The Supreme Court does somewhat but the lower courts don’t seem to. Do ads about the court help? Has any candidate ever tried them? I could see an ad that plays up something like Gorsuch ruling in effect that a truck driver should freeze to death in his cab rather than leave his former company’s precious cargo in a blizzard and asks “do you want a president that appoints justices who understand that your life is more important than a load of cargo?”

Aussie Sausage Sizzle / Election Day is the best thing evah. You have to get your sausage after you vote because the lines move so quickly you would dribble sauce all over your ballot if you bought it on the way in. A$2 for snag, onions, sauce. Yummo. And “Yes” to “compulsory voting” – attendance really, as it affords universal franchise.

Any Savannah hotel suggestions? I don’t want to be at the same one with my mother. I know where she’s at. University Memorial hospital, but there don’t seem to be walking distance hotels. (I prefer a fitness center. 3 episodes of the Good Place and exercise bike are my current anti-depressants.)

You jackals will appreciate this irony, because if I don’t find humor in this, it will break me.

I haven’t talked to my father in almost 20 years. (He wasn’t a good parent. Neither of them were. Let’s leave it at that.)
The best flight for me leaving Denver? A direct to Sav on Frontier. Every other carrier is flying into the bad weather first. I have to be at DIA at oh my god it’s early, but that’s fine.

That flight originates in Phoenix. Where my father lives. And my grandmother (his 95 year old mom) tells me my father is on an oh my god it’s early flight on the same day… so it’s gotta be the same one.

“US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office said on Wednesday that self-proclaimed hackers in Russia stole evidence prosecutors had turned over confidentially to a Russian firm accused of funding a propaganda campaign to interfere in the 2016 US election.

Some non-sensitive data was posted online in October by a Twitter account that took credit for stealing the information, Mueller’s office said in a court filing.

“We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case,” the court document quoted the Twitter post as saying.

The data that appeared online was “altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign aimed (apparently) at discrediting ongoing investigations into Russian interference in the U.S. political system,” prosecutors wrote.”

Do they not care that the rest of us can see and hear what they’re saying and doing?

No, they don’t. Why would they? We’re not legitimate. They do care about the media, but there are relative levels of not even understanding that anyone could object to their positions, and in McConnell’s case being able to play the media like the fiddle. He knows the news loves to question whether or not Democrats should be allowed to share the same world as Republicans.

@Kirk Spencer: At this point, my father’s not even in the bottom quartile of my Shit List. (He can get back there quick like a bunny, but I would in fact piss on him if he was on fire. Something this mis-administration has done to his benefit.) If I can get him being protective of his daughter & granddaughter by aiming him at the XBIL, I’ll actually consider him above the halfway point.

Unfortunately, in terms of B’s condition, the intercranial pressure is making the perfusion of oxygen nearly impossible. This is a kid who was building robots at 8. She’s brilliant, and that’s not just me being doting. There are only degrees of worse now.

“1000 NON-SENSITIVE FILES LEAKED ALONG WITH THE FILE STRUCTURE MUELLER PROVIDED IT WITH

To substantiate an argument that Concord Management should not be able to share the sensitive discovery that the government has shared with their trollish lawyers, Mueller revealed that on October 22, someone posted 1000 files turned over in discovery along with a bunch of other crap, partially nested within the file structure of the files turned over in discovery.”

I doubt Trump actually *admires* McConnell. I think he just gets his, uh, ego stroked by McConnell because the one and only thing Trump has done is nominated a lot of judges, which was the one and only thing McConnell cared about.

(Yes, he signed a Republican-demanded tax cut. Presidents sign bills that they support. He did exactly what Norquist demands: had enough working fingers to sign the bill. And he probably doesn’t even realize that they see him as a rube for falling for their manipulation.)

Resign or be executed for treason, conspiracy against the United States, aiding and abetting the enemy. If they resign they get to live. In Supermax.

Well, putting aside the fact that we would have actually had to declare war for conspiracy with the Russians to be considered treason…and even if we did, it would hardly apply retroactively…are trials for the above charges included as an interim step between resignation and prison and/or execution? Hell, are charges themselves even included in your snuff fantasies? Or are the forms of legality a nicety we’re going to forego for enemies of the state?

Agreed. Watched an HBO doc about Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin today and it uses a lot of their writings to tell the story. Although I found it a bit too fanboy, it made clear what great writers they were. And they would freak over such bad writing.

@raven: I am renting a car. Which is also self defense. Always have an escape, always have a retreat, set boundaries as far in advance as possible so you can work out all the likely issues before they arise.

@realbtl: I’m actually fine. I am sleeping, pacing myself, rescheduling clients, dealing with reality, I’ve done my very good self-care. I’m not happy about the idea, but I’m okay with B not being here anymore. I’ll miss her like fire in the soul, but the nightmare is not her death, it’s Jahi McMath. I’m very much a realist on this.

I know my family (and they’re a big part of the reason I’m a shrink & in the specialty I’m in). I’ve had a long time to work out the defenses around them, and I don’t do “what will come” because that’s when a narcissist is most savage. A death in the family doesn’t change their essential nature. It makes them worse, because they aren’t the center of attention, and the two narcs in the fam will both be there.

@Van Buren: Did you mean “refusing to meet with people who did NOT donate to her foundation”? That’s what I remember from the time. And I never understood why they tied her approval of arms sales to Saudi, Qatar, and UAE to their donations to her foundations. The most important job the Secretary of State performs is selling arms. I am certain she would have approved the sales even if they had refused an “invitation” to contribute. That really does not support an appearance of corruption.

Nestled in the heart of Sandfly lies one of the most closely guarded secrets when it comes to seafood restaurants. Away from the bustle of the Historic District lies Pearl’s Saltwater Grille, situated only fifteen minutes from downtown and provides plenty of parking. Pearl’s Saltwater Grille has been a local favorite for many years and Chef David Weikert’s menu is a seafood lover’s paradise. For fish, you can specify preparation or order from local or house specialties. From Parmesan Crusted Grouper to Crab Stuffed Flounder to Jumbo Grilled Caribbean Shrimp, there is something for everyone at Pearl’s. There is also a vast selection of fried seafoods and steaks. Quality, preparation, and service is incomparable. Pearl’s is one of Savannah’s only restaurants that offers panoramic views of our waters and delivers on this request by having large windows that look out on the water of a tidal inlet off the Georgia coast.

@The Dangerman: Republicans have been convincing themselves for decades that a lot of people really shouldn’t vote and it’s a bad, unfair idea to make it easy. They’ll tell you that straight out. Making it possible for lazy people to vote cheapens the franchise, they say. It ought to be a little difficult so that only the civic-minded are motivated to do it. And then they’ll say that maybe we should limit the franchise to sufficiently smart people, or people who pass a test, or income-tax payers because they have “skin in the game”, or landholders like the Founding Fathers intended, etc. We’re a republic, not a democracy…

It’s a bit more Breslin focused but I’d say 60/40. It has interviews with both of them (one of them together just before Breslin died) and it definitely goes into Hamill’s drinking. And his glamorous love life. It was pretty good. All the quotes from their books and columns were great. Really made you miss great news writers. There just aren’t any quite like them anymore, however flawed they were (especially Breslin later in life).

But the impact so far on output, investment and jobs “is nothing compared with the permanent devastation caused by severing our frictionless trade links overnight, not just with the EU but with the many other global markets with which we currently trade freely,” he added.

“With fewer than 60 days before we leave the EU and the risk of crashing out without a deal looking increasingly real, UK Automotive is on red alert,” he said.

Politicians must do whatever it takes to avoid a no-deal, he said.

And yet, the comments sections of brexit related bbc posts are infested with fuck EU, we will show them, no deal means no deal, leave means leave, EU will collapse without us being the most upvoted posts from the limey wingnutz.

I am starting to notice that as the hour of reckoning nears we have some people suspiciously advocating for leniency and pointing out weird technicalities why certain people just cannot be punished. What are you gonna do, right? Them damn rules are the rules!

They were acting as agents of a foreign power, paid unpaid blackmailed whatever. They should have gone to the FBI but they didn’t. Instead they knowingly furthered the interests of a foreign power. In return they were allowed to further their own interests, wealth, influence, etc.

How interesting. Yet we have so many people clamoring in increasingly frantic fashion that you cannot do that.

I am willing to grant that some are concerned about the rule of law and setting precedent. But it’s starting to become increasingly irrational and whenever things seem weird it’s not a bad idea to widen the range of possible explanations.

@Jay: Why then did you bother to mention that the US has not been in a declared war since WWII? I sort of assumed that you would have bothered typing about it if had nothing to do with the point you were originally making.

Well, putting aside the fact that we would have actually had to declare war for conspiracy with the Russians to be considered treason…

I hear people say this. Russia attacked us. Japan attacked us in the long ago.

Does anyone think that someone who provided Japan with maps of military installations in Hawaii in, say, 1940, for cash, would not have been charged with treason? No declaration of war at the time of the transaction…

But hey, I am sure as a white chick you have the luxury to wait out another round while we all get rounded up by the fascists.

OK, that’s nasty, misogynistic, really horrible. In the past I have agreed with you on a variety of issues, but this is way past the line. You are speaking to someone who has posted here far longer than you have.

As far as I’m concerned you have posted here too much and need to go somewhere where hate for fellow commenters is appreciated. It is NOT appreciated here.

@Steve in the ATL: Funny you mention that – every hotel Spouse & I stayed in south of Mason-Dixon felt Bordello. I think it’s the Victorian influence. I’m skipping B&Bs because they often don’t have an exercise bike, and that really is necessary to my behavioral & mental health right now. (And I really don’t want to get stuck with a nice, but GAGOP host. I can bite my tongue when necessary for grieving people, but I don’t want to tax my patience.)

@satby: Yeah, me too. I’m not asking for a major exception to the rules of the universe. The molecules that make B are in use no matter what for the next decade anyway. You’d think there’d be a place to file for an exception. (I know. In the sub-basement toilet, behind the broken light switch, past the sign reading “beware the leopard.” On Rigelus 5.)

@jacy: So very grey, except when it serves a higher purpose. (When the parents cooperate, woe to their target. I just need to aim them appropriately.)

@Kirk Spencer: I love her to pieces, and all of her pieces, and I’m just hoping the pieces she’s not going to use (heart, lungs, kidneys, liver) will get to others. So that part of her endures.
When she was tiny, she asked me to write a little girl character in the fairy tale I was telling her, so I did. She heard every part of my stories before I wrote them, because if they’d keep her attention, the story worked. She also asked for the little girl to have a boyfriend someday, so he also exists. So she’ll keep existing through my fiction, too. (And those characters now have so much plot armor…)

The RNC e-mailed me two cures
And they said, Send your cash in.
The one was trickle-down medicine,
The other was Trump-brand gin.
And like a fool I mixed them
And it boggled up my mind.
Now Republicans just get uglier,
Can we vote them out in time?
Aaaaoh, mama, can this really be the end,
Served cold fries in the White House
With the Clemson kids again…

When the time comes, maybe the lawful government could hold a lottery to decide which lucky citizen gets to kick the chair out from under Yertle McMotherfuckingTurtle. It could go a long way toward paying down the debt!

@Sebastian: “If they resign they get to live. In Supermax.” Well, OK, maybe. But on a constant diet of junk food. Cold junk food. With nary a nuke in the dining hall.

@Millard Filmore: What’s the statute of limitations on perjury in a Senate confirmation hearing? ‘Cuz Alito, Thomas & Roberts all lied their arses off as well. Not sure about the Gorsucker. (Recruit Roberts to rat on the others: Mr Chief Justice, you can stay if you help us get rid of the scumbags…)